


A New Dawn

by Raccoonfg



Category: Zootopia (2016)
Genre: F/F, Love, Love Confessions, Manhunt - Freeform, Obsession, Unrequited Love, prison break - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-16
Updated: 2017-02-16
Packaged: 2018-09-24 21:41:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,879
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9788321
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Raccoonfg/pseuds/Raccoonfg
Summary: After a week of searching, Officer Judy Hopps is given the whereabouts of the fugitive Dawn Bellwether, only to find that the unexpected is waiting for her.





	

**Author's Note:**

> The following short story was written for /trash/'s Thematic Thursday event; Valentine's Day (02/16/17)

It was a week ago that Judy got the call, disturbing her sleep in the middle of the night with its foreboding message.

Dawn Bellwether had escaped.

From that moment, rest had become a scarce luxury; something to only enjoy in the brief instances that her body and mind would give up on her during the exhausting search that she and her partner refused to let Bogo reassign to anyone else on the force. They had caught her once, and it was up to them to catch her again, by hook or by crook.

The days that followed Dawn’s escape were frustrating and nerve-racking, to say the least. Every possible lead, any little connection, the slightest hints to Bellwether’s whereabouts only led to dead ends and disappointment. It felt like they had been chasing their own tails around every inch of Zootopia, descending deeper into resigned futility.

And all along Nick still managed to be the rock that Judy needed in this fruitless search, encouraging her to never give up, to keep picking herself up after each letdown. Whenever their leads seemed to run dry, he made calls to anyone he could think of in the city that owed him a favor or was connected to someone else in the know.

He was more than just a friend and partner; he was the greatest and most trustworthy ally she could possibly hope for.

Which made it so very hard for her to leave him behind at this point. To go it alone.

But she had very little choice in the matter.

‘Meet me at pier forty-seven, warehouse L. Come alone or else you will never find me again. - D.’

Standing in front of the warehouse door marked ‘L’, Judy reread the note she found under her apartment door that morning. It was unmistakably from Dawn. Even without the obvious initial at the end, the hoofwriting on it was the very same as what Judy had seen on every piece of evidence and stored documents that she and Nick had poured over when looking for clues to Bellwether’s hiding place. Though she had to admit, there was something about the penmanship that seemed shakier, imperfect in comparison to the usually smoother strokes the sheep had displayed in her previous writing.

But then, how could Judy expect Bellwether to take the time to write with any semblance of calmness while on the proverbial lamb?

Putting away the note and drawing her tranq gun, Judy slowly reached her paw out towards the lower small-mammal-accessible handle on the warehouse door and twisted it. The ease of it turning and the soft click of the door opening without resistance should have come as a relief, but deep down Judy wished it had been locked. Anything to prolong walking into an obvious trap.

Cautiously she stepped inside, and nearly jumped in the air when the heavy metallic clunk of the door swinging shut surprised her. Before taking another step further, she rechecked the door, confirming that she wasn’t now locked inside; that she still had a means of escape when worse came to worst.

The interior of the warehouse was mostly dark, save for a faint red glow that seemed to grow brighter down the end of the hall. Judy considered hitting the light switch to her right, but thought better of it, realizing she maybe still had a chance to spoil whatever ambush Dawn had planned for her if she stuck to the shadows.

Slowly she inched down the hallway, her tranq gun raised at eye level, ready to fire at any possible attack Bellwether could throw at her. On the drive to the pier, Judy had run any potential outcome through her weary mind; from direct assault by Dawn, to a pack of enraged savages, to a literal ticking time bomb. The little sheep was capable of anything and Judy knew she had to be mentally prepared, even in such a fatigued state as she was.

As she neared the end of the hall, Judy’s eyes properly adjusted to the dim lighting and were able to discern that the red glow was seeping in through the cracks of yet another closed door. Like the last one, she carefully approached the handle and yet again found it yielding to her touch.

Struggling to keep her nerves in check, Judy gradually eased the door open, trying desperately to not make a sound. The eerie red light shone into the hall, brighter and brighter, flowing in like water being let through the floodgates, illuminating Judy’s body in a crimson hue.

From what little she could see into the next room, there seemed to be no means of cover, no place to hide. If she were to press forward, all cards would be on the table.

But the worst part was that she knew she had no other choice than to take this risk and Bellwether was clearly counting on it. It should have come as no surprise; the former mayor of Zootopia had manipulated her before, and she was still doing it now.

Wishing that Nick was there by her side, Judy took a deep breath, and stepped forward, only to nearly trip over something small by her feet; something she failed to notice sitting in front of the doorway.

Looking down at the source of the light fragile tink of whatever it was that she knocked over onto the cold concrete floor, she saw a white ceramic cylinder wobbling by her feet, and against her better judgement she knelt down and retrieved what turned out to be a coffee mug. Turning it over in her paw, she saw a slogan printed on the side, something she realized she hadn’t seen in a very long time.

The writing said World’s Greatest Dad, with ‘Dad’ scribbled out in red sharpie and Assistant Mayor scrawled over it.

Dawn Bellwether’s mug.

When going through Dawn’s personal effects that the ZPD held in storage as possible evidence, Judy noticed it was absent, despite being listed on the manifest, but she figured it was just a mistake or that someone at the precinct nicked it as some ill conceived souvenir.

She certainly never expected to find it here.

Still grasping the mug in one paw and her gun in the other, Judy continued her steady entry into red room, now more than ever expecting the unexpected.

Stepping inside, she was immediately greeted with what looked like photographs scattered all over the floor, trailing forward and bending to the right like a laid out path. Knowing that she should be keeping her eyes front and center, Judy still found herself tilting her gaze towards the floor, trying to make out what was in these pictures. The figures and surroundings visible in them seemed so familiar, like she had seen them before.

And then it hit her.

These pictures were taken at the police academy.

Not only that, they were from the same year she was enrolled; cadets she trained with were present in almost every photo.

But even more importantly, SHE was present in every photo.

At first she was poorly framed and seen only at a distance in the first few pieces of the path, but as she shuffled onward, the focus on Judy became more direct and bolder, like the photographer was zeroing in on her, capturing her image from every possible angle until the final cluster of pictures were extreme close-ups of her body, examining her mouth, paws, ears, tail, shoulders, even her nose, in perverse detail.

Not realizing how engrossed she had become in this gut wrenching invasion of her body, Judy discovered she had reached the end of the pictorial path and slowly raised her head, bringing her gaze up to a sight so unnerving that her hold on both mug and gun went as slack as her jaw.

Spread out before her, virtually plastered all over the wall, was a vast collage of cut up posters. But not a wide variety; in fact it looked to be two particular poster designs used over and over.

One Judy recognized immediately as the proposed ZPD recruitment poster that Bellwether once presented Judy with before she had briefly resigned from the force out of guilt for worsening the tension between predators and prey during the savage crisis. The image of herself beaming proudly in her dress uniform still disgusted her.

But the other… The other one Judy hadn’t seen before. It looked like some sort of pro-Bellwether propaganda poster, not to dissimilar from the design of Judy’s, with Dawn standing on it with a friendly smile and hopeful slogans printed alongside her body, stamped with the city crest.

The way it was all arranged was undoubtedly odd. The full, unaltered posters ran up the sides like borders, with Judy’s posters on the right and Dawn’s on the left. Within the borders the two of them were then depicted side by side repeatedly, with the superfluous slogans trimmed away, bringing the unblinking women together. The deeper it got towards the center, the closer they were positioned in the pattern, until they practically had their mouths overlapping with each other.

As Judy continued to gape at the bizarre sight, more quirks and alterations became apparent in the collage. In some places, parts of their features were swapped, like heads, ears or eyes, turning them into cobbled amalgams of each other. Unable to handle the work of someone so clearly off the deep end, Judy started the back away from it, rejecting its presentation. But it only became far worse, as distancing herself from it put the whole piece into a complete perspective.

It wasn’t just a random mass.

It was a heart.

“Do you like it?”

The sudden voice from behind startled Judy so much that the mug slipped from her paw and smashed against the cold hard floor.

Without risking another moment’s hesitation, Judy spun around to the voice, gun clenched in both paws, ready to fire.

And it was down the sights of her sidearm that she saw her standing there, pleasantly smiling like Judy had come as a welcome house-guest.

Dawn Bellwether.

“Well aren’t we clumsy today,” Dawn asked with a soft chuckle.

Judy only stared back at her; a tense finger rested against the trigger.

Dawn was, however, unfazed, as she maintained a relaxed posture and shook her head sympathetically. “Oh, don’t look so upset, Judy. It was only a mug.”

“Dawn Bellwether,” Judy barked, finally summoning the strength to assert herself, “You are in violation of your prison sentence and will submit yourself to--”

“It has been so long, Judy. Have you been keeping well?”

Bellwether’s undaunted small talk stalled Judy at first, shaking her confidence for a moment, but all it took to steel herself again was remembering that it was Dawn who was on the receiving end of a dart, not Judy.

“If you do not submit yourself to my authority--”

“Does the chief still give you a hard time?”

“I will be forced to--”

“You have no idea how much I’ve missed you…”

“I-I will be forced to--”

“How much I’ve waited for this…”

Judy could feel herself getting rattled under pressure. The pictures, the collage, Dawn’s disconnected attitude, all of it set her on edge, terrified about what the cordial sheep was thinking, what she might do at any moment. And all Judy could do was hide behind her gun and her words.

“If you d-do not s-stand down,” Judy raised her voice, hoping to break through Bellwether’s iron-clad façade, “by the c-count of t-ten…”

“Judy?” Dawn raised her arms akimbo, taking a step towards her would-be arresting officer.

Judy immediately stepped back and begun counting. “One.”

“Judy?” Dawn brought her arms higher with another step, forcing Judy to back off again.

“T-two.”

“Judy?” Dawn’s voice held a disbelieving laugh in its tone as she gave Judy a pleasantly bemused look.

“T-three.”

“Judy, please. You don’t have to worry,” Dawn shook her open and empty hooves. “I won’t hurt you. I would never hurt you.”

Halting her count for a second, Judy let a snort escape from her nose, barely able to hide her disgust at such a bold-faced lie.

Surprisingly, Dawn’s face slacked a little, displaying a picture of solemn remorse, and her arms gradually lowered back to her sides.

“I know what you’re thinking,” Bellwether said with further guilt developing on her face. “It was wrong that I tried to do that to you, I know. But you forced me to do it. You do understand that, right?”

Judy didn’t respond. She was torn between resuming her warning count, letting Dawn say her peace, or just outright darting her in the face.

“I got a little bit upset with you, and I feel terrible about it,” Dawn continued. “But honestly Judy, all you had to do was give me the silly briefcase in the first place and I would have forgiven you.”

“Forgive ME?!” Judy’s outburst came as a surprise even to herself, but still she was so incensed that she had to press on. “For what? Doing the right thing? Trying to get to the bottom of what you were doing this whole time?”

“For leaving me.”

“What?” The unforeseen answer completely derailed Judy’s indignation, shocking her to the point of loosening her readiness at the trigger.

“I-I did SO MUCH for you Judy,” Dawn sadly shook her head. “I wanted you to succeed- I wanted US to succeed, and you threw it all away for- for HIM.”

“For Nick..?”

“I could have leaked everything Lionheart was doing to the press and gotten rid of him that way, but it was you that I chose, YOU that I helped…” Dawn’s eyes started to well up with tears as she pressed on. “You were supposed to understand. You were supposed to be there by my side as we made this city a better place for mammals like us; for the little guys.”

“Dawn, I--”

“I thought you were special. I thought you would understand me. Ever since I first saw you at the police academy…” Tears were now rolling down her face and soaking into the wool that lined Bellwether’s jaw. “It was on your first day. You didn’t see me, but I saw you. Small… Alone… Scared… Determined. You were fighting the same uphill battle that I have my entire life. You were just like me.”

Watching Bellwether emotionally crumble in front of her, Judy started to feel sorry for the former mayor.

“So when you turned against me- let HIM turn you against me, I might have acted a little… Irrationally. B-but I’m glad that you outsmarted me!” Dawn’s face suddenly perked up with a manic smile. “I could have done something I would have regretted for my entire life and you- you saved me from myself! Do you understand this, Judy?”

“I…” Judy was at a loss for words. All of this was so insane and overwhelming. “N-no, I… I don’t--”

“And even better,” Dawn gushed, “You became the success I always wanted you to be! Every day in that… T-that PLACE they locked me away in, I’ve read about all you’ve been accomplishing. No matter what, you’ve never given up the struggle, and that’s what I love about you. I--”

Dawn’s eyes went wide and she clapped a hoof to her mouth, slowly lowering it to reveal the bright beaming grin on her face.

“I love you.”

Everything on Judy drooped at the sudden revelation; her face, her arms, her gun, her ears, everything. The grotesque heart-shaped collage now loomed behind her like some ominous shadow.

“I love you, Judy,” Dawn repeated, her face curled up in unbridled glee.

“Dawn…” Judy now fully rested her gun at her side, defeated by the sheep’s pitiful state. “Dawn, you need help.”

“I knew you’d say that.” Bellwether softly nodded; her face easing into a semblance of rationality. “It can be difficult to take this kind of news, but you’ll come around.”

“N-no, Dawn… I won’t.” She didn’t seem to be much of a threat after all, but all the same Judy renewed her firm hold of her sidearm. “So please, let me bring you in and I’ll do what I can to fix this. Okay?”

Bellwether blankly stared at Judy, not responding, looking lost in a haze of whatever obsessive madness that had taken hold of her.

Struggling to find some way to end this all peacefully, Judy settled on the only possible way of getting through to Dawn on her level.

“I want you to succeed, Dawn. I-I want us to succeed. Will you help me help you?” Judy held out an open paw as she pleaded with her. “Please?”

Bellwether eyed Judy’s offer with a sort of vacant innocence and cautiously raised her own hoof towards it. But when she came within inches of Judy’s paw, Dawn sharply recoiled her reach, like she had briefly touched the hot element of a stove.

“I-I’ll…” Dawn moved her jaw around awkwardly, looking like she was stumbling over her own tongue. “I’ll come with you Judy, b-but on one condition.”

Judy could see that Dawn was trembling like a leaf in the wind; maybe she was getting through to her. With her own heart beating madly in her chest with tension, she said “Name it.”

“One kiss. To show me you care.”

It took a great deal of self control to not immediately balk at the request, even with Judy now fully aware of Dawn’s romantic obsession with her. Not because of the thought of kissing another woman; she could live with that. And not because she was worried it was a trick; it was clear that Dawn was unarmed and hiding nothing in her hooves.

No, it was the idea of indulging Bellwether’s sick delusion that they were somehow meant for each other; allowing this moment to be another brick in her mind’s warped façade.

But if she said no, what would happen?

Would Dawn’s psyche break, causing her to lash out at Judy?

Would she turn and flee? And if that, could Judy really trust her aim enough to stop her? Could she move quickly enough to catch her?

One kiss, and it would all be over without a fight.

Gulping, Judy sternly nodded.

“Okay.”

If Nick ever found out about this, he’d never let her hear the end of it.

Nervously taking Judy’s paw, Dawn stepped forward with a sheepish smile, bringing them close together.

Standing at such an intimate distance, Judy caught Bellwether’s scent; it was like the warm smell of freshly dried laundry. It almost made her feel bad for Dawn, knowing that with all the time she had put into tracking her down, it had been a few days since Judy’s last bath. She must have stunk of sweat and stale coffee; and yet if Dawn noticed, it didn’t show on her blushing face.

With their lips drawing together, the moment of truth was near and there was no going back. Judy closed her eyes and pursed her mouth forward, feeling the soft, tepid sensation of Dawn’s lips pressing against her own.

Worrying that playing a dead fish might upset Bellwether, Judy did her best to get into it; tilting her face to the side; working her lips against Dawn’s as the sheep’s grip on Judy’s paw tightened with excitement.

It was all so very, very surreal for Judy; deeply kissing someone she loathed so, so much; inviting her into an intimate embrace of her body and forcing herself to pretend to enjoy it like this. Even if it was by her own volition, she still felt like she was being violated in some small way.

And it was in this point of self-disgust that Judy was distracted enough to not notice the small cracking noise made by Dawn’s teeth, immediately followed by her tongue quickly forcing something small and hard into Judy’s mouth.

By the time she felt the tickle of an unknown fluid spread over her taste buds, it was too late.

Judy jerked away from Dawn’s embrace, tearing her paw out of the sheep’s grip and stumbling to the floor. Bellwether placidly watched Judy, rubbing her hoof over her lips like she was still relishing the taste of Judy’s kiss.

Judy spat out a small clear shell of plastic, no bigger than a pill. The red light of the room made it hard to tell what was once in there, but she could still see that it was now empty.

“W-what-- What did…” Judy’s head started to spin as the details of the room started to blur. “Did you drug me..?”

“I’m sorry Judy.” Bellwether leaned down low to Judy; her image multiplied and twirled like a ferris wheel. “I really am, but you’ll come around, just like I said.”

With her muscles growing unresponsive, Judy’s body was turning to jelly by the second. She spread out her paw to swipe at Dawn, but it only resulted in her body flopping over to the side.

“It took a while to get it,” Dawn said as she started petting Judy’s now immobile head. “I was almost worried that I never would. It had been so long since Doug told me about its effects and how it’s made.”

The room began to grow darker as Dawn’s voice became distant, echoing in Judy’s ears.

“You’ll feel much better once it’s over, Judy. You’ll see. Just let it take its course, and when you wake up, everything will be all--

 

* * *

 

Judy stirred from her sleep, feeling her head lightly shook by the swaying of the train. As her eyes refocused to the bright morning light, she felt a gentle grip around her paw.

“Mn… Good morning,” Judy softly cooed. “Are we there yet?”

“No, not yet. We’ve only passed Deerbrook County.”

Judy yawned as she curled her body, working off the sleep in her muscles. “I had the strangest dream.” She warmly smiled at her partner. “You were in it.”

“Was I? Well why don’t you get some more rest, love, and I’ll meet you there.”

“Okay.” Judy leaned over for a kiss on the cheek before settling back down into her seat and closing her eyes. “I love you.”

“I love you too.”

Watching Judy slip back into her tender slumber, Dawn lightly patted the rabbit’s paw where it laid on the armrest between them and glanced up at the window.

The rolling hills of the countryside flew by as their train surged onward; and in the short moments where the sun was blotted out by passing trees, Dawn could see the reflections of her fellow passengers in the glass.

One of them, a badger, was idly flipping through a newspaper, of which the headline caught Dawn’s interest more than the rushing scenery.

‘Two Dead Found at Warehouse Fire.’

Looking back at Judy, Dawn delicately smiled. The ride had been long and tiring for both of them, and there was still so much more traveling to do, but she knew that once they arrived at their final stop, it would all be worth it to finally get away from it all.

It would be the start of a new day for them both.


End file.
